BJJ Poll: How Do You Prefer to Open Your Opponent’s Closed Guard?

This poll comes to us courtesy of Liam in the United Kingdom. The idea came to him as he was preparing a lesson plan for his Brazilian jiu-jitsu students.

The question of how one opens their opponent’s closed guard is a good one. I trust that you are not one of those beginners who simply grinds your elbow into your opponent’s thigh to cause pain! Not much technique in that. And mind you, since this isn’t MMA we didn’t offer the poll option of “punch him straight in his mouth”.

After you’ve let us know whether you prefer to open your opponent’s guard from standing, kneeling, or that you don’t have a preference, if you have any funny guard passing stories let us know by posting a comment. Hopefully none of them involve an opponent trying to open your closed guard by spiking you on the head!

I agree with Dokomoy. In our beginning curriculum we teach one guard pass from knees and two from standing. I always explain that you have much more power and leverage from standing and that gravity can be your friend there too. That is why we have more standing passes than kneeling passes. Also for self-defense, I cannot imagine kneeling in someone’s guard in a fight, not for a second!